


half agony, half hope

by qbrujas



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Epistolary, F/F, Love Letters, Pining, ava please let her love you, lots of pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25997737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qbrujas/pseuds/qbrujas
Summary: I write your name because I am too afraid to say it out loud.An undelivered love letter from Detective Rose Adani to Ava du Mortain.
Relationships: Female Detective/Ava du Mortain
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23
Collections: A series of familiar letters





	half agony, half hope

Ava,

I don’t know why I’m writing this; I will not give it to you. I will rip the page out of the notebook and tear it to pieces and pretend I never wrote it.

I suppose I am writing because I have to say this somewhere. Because I can’t keep these things inside me, I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

I would much rather say them to you, but I don’t think you want to hear them.

I think I am writing because there is a loud, loud ringing sound in my head whenever you are near me. It’s sweet and overwhelming and I can’t ignore it and I would never want to. It drowns out everything else and the only thing left in focus is you.

I have not stopped thinking of the brush of your fingers on my cheek, on my jaw, and how I wish I could have captured that moment— held on to it— stopped time and stayed in it. I could have counted your eyelashes, your face was so close to mine.

I have not stopped thinking of that look I catch in your eyes, sometimes, when you're looking at me. That look that makes me think—my heart is speeding up even as I’m writing this—that makes me sure you hear that sound— you feel this— too.

I know there’s something here, I know—

And I know there’s so much beauty and so much good and so much wonder in you—you’ve only given me glimpses of it and even the smallest of them takes my breath away and I want to know more, more, more about you.

I don’t know what wounds you’ve suffered, Ava, what pain you're holding on to, what fears you're hiding. In my mortal existence I can't imagine the amount of hurt you must have seen—felt—in nine hundred years. I can't even think of it. My heart aches with how cruel this world must have been to you.

I could never pretend to be capable of soothing wounds that old, that deep—

I couldn’t pretend to be. I’m sorry.

But I wish you would let me try anyway. I would try.

Ava—

Ava—

Ava—

I write your name because I am too afraid to say it out loud.

I think that’s why I’m doing this.

Whenever you are close to me, close enough to touch, I hold my breath and I am scared any movement I make, any word I say, will make you run from me again, push me away again.

(What is it that you are so afraid of? Please, tell me—tell me and we can be afraid together.)

I am terrified that you will try to say again that you feel nothing (and I know that’s a lie, Ava, I know it is—I think it is—I hope it is) and then I will go and make more awful, awful choices and let my ex into my apartment at three in the morning and let her kiss me when it's only you I want to kiss.

Only you.

Ava, I—

I don’t know if I can do this.

But I don’t think I can  _ not _ do this.

Ava—

I don’t know why I’m writing this; I will not give it to you. You don’t want to hear it.

But I had to say it somewhere.

Rose

**Author's Note:**

> More love letters for the Wayhaven writers group challenge. 
> 
> The title is, of course, from Persuasion by Jane Austen: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope."


End file.
